Spencer Carbery, the Hershey Bears’ head coach who was named the AHL’s best bench boss in 2021, is leaving town.
The 39-year-old coach has been hired by the Toronto Maple Leafs to be an assistant coach next season.
Also today: hearing TOR is hiring AHL Hershey’s Spencer Carbery as an assistant coach. Carbery was AHL Coach of the Year in 2021.
— Elliotte Friedman (@FriedgeHNIC) July 17, 2021
The move comes as a surprise because Carbery signed a multi-year contract extension months ago and was not mentioned by hockey insiders as a candidate for any NHL hirings.
“We are pleased to sign Spencer to a new contract,” Capitals general manager Brian MacLellan said on April 22. “Spencer is a talented, young head coach and his track record of winning at the professional level, while also developing players, makes him the ideal coach for our top prospects.”
“Spencer has built a culture of success, and his drive, passion, and ability to get the best out of his players have made him the perfect fit for our organization,” Bryan Helmer, the Bears’ vice president of hockey operations, added.
Under Carbery’s guidance, the Bears finished atop the AHL standings during the 2020-21 season with a record of 24-7-2-0, a .758 points percentage, which according to the Bears, is the second-highest mark in the franchise’s 83-year history. Hershey allowed a league-low 2.33 goals per game in 2020-21 and ranked eighth in scoring (3.33).
The Bears’ performance earned Carbery the Louis A.R. Pieri Memorial Award at the end of the season.
🏆 𝗔𝗛𝗟'𝗦 𝗢𝗨𝗧𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗡𝗗𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗖𝗢𝗔𝗖𝗛 🏆
Spencer Carbery has won the Louis A.R. Pieri Memorial Award as @TheAHL's outstanding coach for the 2020-21 season. He's the first Bears coach to win this award since John Paddock in 1988.https://t.co/EHkJv0ElAH pic.twitter.com/8fgyXDfiOk
— Hershey Bears (@TheHersheyBears) May 28, 2021
Carbery’s career in Hershey ends after just three seasons. At the time of his hire, he was the second-youngest coach in the AHL. Carbery led Hershey to a 104-50-9-8 record (.658 points percentage) but was robbed of the chance to take his teams deep into the postseason the last two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The AHL canceled the Calder Cup playoffs in both 2020 and 2021.
Carbery immediately jumped behind the bench after retiring as a player with the South Carolina Stingrays in 2010. Carbery was hired by the ECHL team months later as an assistant coach for the 2010-11 season. The very next year, Carbery was promoted to head coach of the team. Carbery took the Stingrays to the playoffs all five years he coached, posting a 207-115-38 record.
Carbery’s rise has been impressive. He went from an unknown assistant in the ECHL to AHL Coach of the Year and an NHL assistant a little more than a decade later.
Congratulations, Spencer, and good luck with Toronto.
